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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#81

Post by Daneel_ »

holler wrote: post #66
dado3212 wrote: post #7

I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? A…

One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simp…

They did this a long time in the past (See: Rocket League Rocket Labs) and it was near-universally disliked.

The complication when it comes to adding new features is that Rocket League is built on top of a bespoke scripting engine that was discontinued after Unreal Engine 3, so they have to fully recreate RL in UE5. Because of this they don't want to put any additional resources into new features for UE3 since it's wasted effort once the game transitions to the new engine.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#82

Post by homerhomer »

Steam is the best thing to happen to gaming. My library is always updated. I'm able to play most of my catalog of games on Windows, Linux and here soon on Chromebooks. Since I started to use Steam I have amassed a HUGE library that I periodically have dig into and find stuff. It's really is amazing. Yep, I can't sell old games and yes there's a bunch of freemium games that are focused on addicts but who cares. Yep Rocket League you changed. I still play it but if I decide not to there's a ton of other games for my attention.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#83

Post by iswu »

I am a game developer. I have been part of the industry for a few years now.

I am working on a product with a new company I formed.

The economics are interesting. I pay, upfront, all capital required to get the product ready for viewing.

Hackers and exploiters can probably destroy the experience for players because an indie studio is going to struggle to have any proactive anticheat.

Lag, poor networking, and poor performance can also kill the experience fir players and result in a negative review.

Delivering a game that covers the bases here well enough to not be turned into a meme or review bombed is a scarey endeavor.

Who knows, maybe the market looks and decides the game just isn't cool enough?

I hope for success on my project. I wont be doing any microtransactions initially because I am too focused on the other considerations.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#84

Post by dehrmann »

toastar wrote: post #80

I don't engage with purchasable wearables (or super hero movies) but I do like the Captain America example buried in this post. A more practical offering like the choice to pay a tiny fee to unlock a few supplementary scenes about a character's back story while streaming something seems like an inevitability - unless I'm missing something and it's already been done?

What you do is show a QR code in the theater, make people scan it, and if enough people in that showing do, you get the bonus scene.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#85

Post by kevinventullo »

silisili wrote: post #17

There are still a ton of solid games that aren't constantly asking for money. TLOU, Elden Ring, RDR2 to name three huge ones. I'm 50/50 on Ubisoft because their games are still great standalone, but do offer IAP that I just ignore. I'm OK with those offering freemium and such so long as it doesn't kill off the old model. I don't think it will.

I will say that RDR Online pushes you hard towards micro transactions. That said, the single player game is worth $60 on its own, so I don’t mind just skipping the online.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#86

Post by telchior »

holler wrote: post #66
dado3212 wrote: post #7

I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? A…

One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simp…

Fair criticism, but one that is only relevant in the first place because of freemium. Prior to that business model, there was no such thing as a company continuing to provide regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of the non-subscription variety.

I mean, how or why would they? You release something; it makes 90% of its lifetime revenue in year 1; if you continue working on it for 6 more years, you're out of business.

As for the ownership or survivability of in-game virtual goods -- I think the author is referring to Valve's hats in Team Fortress 2? -- to me it's nonsensical to complain that you don't own it outside of the game. It only has relevance in the game, and it would be silly to ask the company to develop some external service just for owning your object. The ones that have tried that kind of thing just fail and look silly. But wait! Along come NFTs, with potential permanent ownership... but gamers despise that idea, too.

Gamers are just eternally grumpy and conservative about changes and progress. (I say that as a grumpy gamer, myself.)

Re: I hate what video games have become

#87

Post by whywhywhywhy »

bradknowles wrote: post #57
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly makes you think as someone who "dabbles in games" to be entitled to profit? AFAIK it costs $100 +30% to publish on Steam. It only takes 260 people to buy your game at 50 cents to break even. If your game can't sell 260 copies at 50 cents then it's just that, worthless. Why not just release your game for free, for free? Does it have to be on Steam? Does it have to make money?

Do you have to eat? Do you have to have a place to sleep? Seems to me like making a reasonable amount of money to help towards these goals is not an unreasonable thing to hope for. But maybe you can prove me wrong?

You shouldn’t be selling your game for 50c if you expect to live off it so the calculation is even more off.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#88

Post by Gigachad »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #21
pengaru wrote: post #15

There's a lot to dislike, but my gripes as a developer who occasionally dabbles in games are more along the lines of "this puzzle game prototype is interesting and may be worth polishing up and tossing on steam, but oh right, it won't even pay for itself unless I turn it into yet another gambling machine." Then I go back to writing system software.

Yeah, people blame the developers, blame the publishers, but I think the sad truth is, gamers themselves shoulder much of the blame. Somehow the public came to believe that everything should be free. Maybe it was the internet? Maybe it was sites/apps like Facebook? Regardless, when a great piece of software that happens to have a price tag fails to sell, whose fault is that? Don't blame developers/publishers for goin…

Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get paid.

The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games. Just because it doesn’t match the Hacker News gaming utopia template doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong.

This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of children don’t have money to buy the game but their presence on the platform adds value to the people who do have money to spend on it.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#89

Post by telchior »

falcolas wrote: post #61

I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of the “it’s fine because it’s just cosmetics, and it doesn’t affect the game” line of reasoning. Because that’s patently not true. If cosmetics didn’t affect the gaming experience, they wouldn’t be worth anything. Certainly not worth paying above and beyond the purchase price for. Cosmetics are just the easiest to monetize and normalize, to the point where players will now defend…

As someone who has worked in F2P games: you're quite wrong that cosmetics are "easy to monetize". Good god, it's HARD.

Because the only way it works, at a scale that can support a studio, is if people really, really love the game. Even something that can capture attention for dozens of hours may not be good enough.

As a gamer, you're looking at something like Rocket League and going "oh yeah, it's so easy! They just make a skin and it sells!" But, uh, no. It's the 0.001% elite of all games. And they only have an "easy" time selling cosmetics in the sense that they already did the much harder work of making something amazing. Kinda like it's easy for Google to make money from ads; you need the killer product first.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#90

Post by Semaphor »

I’m glad there is this whole parallel universe of amazing single player (or MP-optional) games with absolutely no dark patterns, loot boxes or any of the shit people who play MP games have to put up with.

I buy a game, and unless I get the DLC(s)/Expanions pack(s), that’s all I’ll ever have to pay. Civilization V: Over 2000 hours. Pathfinder: Kingmaker/Wrath of the righteous: Over 1000 hours each. Stellaris [0]: Almost 1000 hours.

[0]: Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think it’s amazing. Content DLCs are accompanied by free feature patches, cosmetic/minor DLCs are well, minor. No one forces you to get all of them. And thanks to this DLC policy, Stellaris will soon turn 6 years old while still getting regular updates.

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